Commission register shunned by lobbyists

The European Commission’s register of lobbyists has been up and running for six months, but the participation by lobbying firms has so far been poor – and law firms seem to have engineered an almost total boycott of the register.

According to an analysis carried out by ALTER-EU, a group campaigning for transparency, the proportion of commercial lobbying firms signed up to the Commission’s register ranges from a tenth to around a quarter of all companies active in Brussels.

On 4 February, there were 897 lobbyists on the register. ALTER-EU pointed out that a report by the European Parliament in 2003 estimated that there were 2,600 lobbyists active in Brussels. The group found that by 23 January, of 165 Brussels-based lobbying firms in the European Public Affairs Directory lists, only 11 had registered.

Of the 34 firms which are members of the European Public Affairs and Consultancies Association (EPACA), a trade organisation for the bigger lobbyi-ng firms, only nine had registered. For law firms, the figures are even worse: only two firms have registered.

ALTER-EU’s Erik Wesselius argued that this is a serious hole in the register because in the US, which has a compulsory registration and disclosure system for lobbyists, law firms are among the top five biggest lobbying organisations.

Progression

José Lalloum, the chairman of EPACA, is more positive about the level of registrations, saying: “There is always an opportunity for those who want to see the bottle as half-empty. The register is progressing well. It’s started slow, but it’s progressing and it’s accelerating.”

Lalloum said some firms may be delaying registering because they need to get the agreement of all their clients before they register.

Fact File

11

Number of Brussels-based lobbying firms on the Commission’s register out of 165 listed in the European Public Affairs Directory, according to ALTER-EU

“It might cause some problems if you’re a consultancy with 30 or 40 clients and one is not sure,” he said.

One aspect of the system that seems to be working, the threat of being removed from the register for failure to follow the code of conduct, may have also increased delays.

In January, the Commission removed GPlus Europe, a consultancy, from the register because it failed to give the names of two clients that had asked to remain confidential.

GPlus has since been restored to the register, but the experience may have made other companies more cautious about their applications to join.

Lalloum said that the lack of clear guidance from the Commission on how to collect and declare financial information, such as earnings from lobbying, may also have contributed to delays.

The Commission admits that there is still room to improve the number of registrations.

“The Commission is already on record [as] noting the insufficient buy-in from the members of EPACA, law firms and think-tanks,” said one official.

But he added that “half-way through the trial period” was too early for the Commission to make a final judgement. The official said he expected that “coverage would continue to increase”.

The Commission believes that working with the European Parliament to establish a common code of conduct and register for lobbyists should make a significant contribution to improving transparency.

Common platform

A German Socialist MEP, Jo Leinen, one of three MEPs on a joint Parliament-Commission working group, said he was hoping that a common internet platform could be set up in April linking the registers run by each institution, while work will continue on a “one-stop shop” for lobbyists when the new Parliament starts work after the June elections.

The Parliament’s list includes individuals’ names because it gives out access passes to Parliament buildings.

Linking the two registers would provide more information about individual lobbyists, partly addressing one of ALTER-EU’s criticisms of the Commission’s register. Lobbyists who failed to respect the code of conduct could be denied access to the Parliament, which might be an incentive for greater compliance.

However, a big gap remains, because representatives of the national governments in the Council of Ministers are refusing to co-operate on a common register for all three institutions.

Leinen said: “There will be a clear vacuum and deficiency in the system if the Council does not join.”

He had hoped that the Czech government, which holds the presidency of the Council, and the Swedish government, which will take over the presidency in the second half of 2009, would be more open to bringing the Council on board than the recent French presidency was.

Comparing data

ALTER-EU’s Wesselius conceded that the system could provide some information that was not available before, but he said that there are problems comparing data because there is no standardised way for companies to report income from lobbying. “It’s two steps forwards and one step back,” he said.

Wesselius said allowing firms to declare their lobbying revenues in bands, or as a percentage of total turnover, gives big lobbying firms too many opportunities to obscure the true picture, adding that a mandatory register is still needed. “The Commission has wasted time choosing a voluntary system,” he said.

The lobbyists’ register is still a work in progress, as the current low level of registration suggests. For the Commission, getting the register up and running has set the EU on a path to greater transparency.

“The register has broken the mental barrier in Europe on regulating lobbying, and European lobbyists should ready themselves for irreversible transparency,” an official said.